


i do not like large bugs with wings

by strangeblueshark



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Bisexuality, Gen, M/M, My Life My Tapes, Song: The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us (Sufjan Stevens), Songfic, Sufjan Stevens - Freeform, Summer Camp, The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades it Out to Get Us!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27495373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeblueshark/pseuds/strangeblueshark
Summary: A speculative missing entry from My Life, My Tapes.
Relationships: Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	i do not like large bugs with wings

_July 27, sometime after 11 P.M._  
I am not recording this because I am currently in bed in a cabin fifteen miles out in the woods. My tape recorder was confiscated earlier in the day due to it being deemed a distraction that was disrupting my ability to learn, and though I valiantly argued for the benefits of recording my attempts to tie a bowline knot, my words fell on deaf ears to the camp counselors. 

Even if I had been permitted to keep the machine, though, I know it would be discourteous to attempt to record while my fellow scouts are sleeping. I am not asleep yet, despite it being well past lights out. There is a wasp flying around the room. I am not sure how it got in, and I am not sure how it can fly in this cold. I thought that insects hibernated or went somewhere else when it was cold, but this one seems to have missed the memo. Actually, wasp included, no one else in the cabin seems to be affected by the chill but me (the boy in the bunk bed above me has actually kicked his blanket off and it is lying on the floor beside me), so perhaps it is only my imagination that I can see my breath forming a cloud the air, spreading throughout the room and fogging up the glass pane on the door. Mere imagination would not explain the shivering, though, I don’t think. 

Anyway, the buzzing of the wasp that is keeping me awake and on edge has reminded me of something that happened earlier today, also involving a wasp. My friend (whose name I will not write down here, in case he does not want to be identified, should this paper fall into enemy hands) and I were at the lake a little way away from the other scouts. We had both finished our knot-tying activity early, and therefore headed off to Horseshoe Lake to practice swimming for the 100 yard swim test. We flipped a coin and it landed on heads, so I got to go out first, while he stayed back on shore to count how long it took me to make it out to the buoy and back. 

I was halfway out in the middle of the lake when I heard a shout, so I swam back to shore as fast as I could. Reaching the shallows, I saw him with his face in his hands, crying. He said something has bitten him, and I saw seven angry red marks on his shoulder that would seem to confirm his hypothesis. I moved closer to try to examine his injuries and to administer first aid, but as I got near him all of a sudden my throat felt tight and I wanted to cry too, but I didn’t know why. I put one hand on his shoulder near the marks, but my other hand found his back, and then the hand on his shoulder traced upward and cupped his cheek, and then I kissed him. 

After what felt like a long time but was in reality probably only a few seconds, I pulled back from him and opened my eyes. It was then that I noticed there was a gigantic wasp on the length of my own arm. Much panic ensued, but we both ended up running through the woods in different directions with the largest wasp I have ever seen giving chase. Perhaps because of this distraction, we did not get a chance to talk about the kiss, but he would not meet my eyes when I tried to look at him at evening campfire. 

It seems important to note that I was wearing my brother Emmett’s red hat before all of this happened. (I wore it for most of the day, aside from the parts where I was actually swimming, when I took the hat off and put it on a picnic table next to the lake. When we ran away after the wasp incident, I forgot it there, but when I went back to look for it later I could not find the hat again). Dad and I found it while cleaning out the attic the other day, and Dad said it reminded him of a book he read a long time ago, before I was born. He said he would find a copy for me, but that I might not understand it until I was older. He did say that the unique color of the hat in the story symbolized the main character’s desire to be different from the “phonies” in society, though, which I think is an admirable goal, but not entirely practical. Sometimes, for your own safety, you have to pretend like you fit in. 

Writing this out has been comforting, but I do not think I will make a habit of it when I have my tape recorder available instead. I prefer talking things out, not writing them down. My brain goes too fast for my hands to catch up. I have also written in cursive to attempt to disguise my writing from the other boys, who I am not sure are intelligent enough to decipher it, which means things proceed even more slowly. My handwriting is not particularly legible even when I try my best and print in block letters. However, even with the extra precaution in place, I think the best thing for me to do now would be to burn this as soon as I can take it to the campfire. Some things are best left unrecorded.

It is still very cold in here. Wish I had a coat, or multiple coats, or even those horrible leg warmers my mother wanted me to pack but which I refused to include, since it is supposed to be summer, after all. I think I hear rain beginning to fall outside, and something tells me it is shaping up to be a terrible storm.

**Author's Note:**

> I have this story taking place in late July 1969, when he's at the scout jamboree. A lot happens for Coop that summer, so I figure this might be another aspect of his identity he’s figuring out around that time, as well as part of what sort of cosmically leads him to end up driving around with Star and April a few days later, though in his typical repress-everything-and-pretend-it’s-fine way, he probably wouldn’t actually talk to them about it.
> 
> The title, "I do not like large bugs with wings," comes from later in MLMT; it's something Coop says when he's conducting his sleep experiment.


End file.
